Career Information and Workload Warriors - Time Saving Tips and … · and Workload Warriors - Time Saving Tips and Tricks“ June 12, 2012 (views posted here are my own) Clea Zolotow

“Career Information and Workload Warriors - Time Saving Tips and Tricks“ June 12, 2012 (views posted here are my own)

Clea Zolotow Senior Technical Staff Member Transition and Transformation Service Specialty Area

Women in Advanced Computing Summit, 2012

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Career Information: The beginning - 1987

  Started in Medford, MA as a temporary typist for Amdahl Computers onsite at American Express via “Kelly Girls.”

  Was hired by American Express (became First Data) as a Fixed Asset Clerk.

  Became an MICS administrator the next year and went on call for MVS. For the next 10 years. The personal cost was extreme. –  Mainframe work (JCL, SAS) –  Capacity Planning work

  Everyone in Massachusetts was great. I never felt different because I was female and all the guys went out of their way to help me learn.

  Was relocated to Denver, CO.


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School


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Post-Relocation - 1995

  Not funny stories: –  “You make so little I’m not going to give you a raise as if I give someone else a

raise, my budget goes up by tens of thousands of dollars.” The administrative staff made more than I did.

–  You should volunteer to be laid off. Men take layoffs much harder than women do (from the Director of HR????)

–  “You are taking jobs away from men that need to support families.” (What am I, chopped liver?)

–  “You have to take all the on call as I have a family.” (Oh, please.) –  You only got this job because you wear a skirt/filled a quota. –  Universally ignored at meetings. –  Written up:

•  Didn’t adhere to dress code (was up all night). •  Didn’t come in on time Monday morning (worked all weekend, overslept was an hour

late?) •  Slept through pages. (Ops didn’t page me, here’s the record. Jerk.) •  Given 6 minute, then 3 minute response time to pages. This is before cell phones. •  Told to type letters, make meetings, make COFFEE. Answer the phone.


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MVS SYSTEMS

PROGRAMMING


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IBM   Started trying to get into IBM in 1997. Succeeded

in February, 1999.   Was hired in as a capacity planner.   Yay! No more 24-7 on call!   Got married in 2002.   Never had any problems with IBMers. Had some

problems with clients, but not many.   Got to do some great things:

–  Expanded capacity planning to MVS disk and tape. –  Expanded capacity planning to midrange! –  Learned SQL, Wrote a lot of custom code in QMF,

then in Brio, now SPSS. –  Worked on advanced methods for On-Demand

Computing Systems (ODCS), the predecessor to the cloud. This resulted in a bunch of patents.

I am the Count!

Heh, heh, heh


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Combined Technical and Financial

  Started to do cost savings through virtualization. –  PATENT: OPTIMIZED EFFICIENT LPAR CAPACITY CONSOLIDATION

  Bought most of the IBM internal equipment for 3 years. –  Learned the financial size of the business.

  Finally that got attention of Distinguished Engineers and Vice Presidents.


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I can do math

 Modeling and statistics

 Probability

 Odd things: – TCPIP problems with sliding windows, found a magic

number – Working on Game theory now


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IBM – Senior Technical Staff Member

  Was appointed to STSM at IBM in 2008.   STSM is considered technical track, but I

am usually on the same level as a vice president, depending on the VP.

  What is an STSM: “STSM is a title given to senior engineers, programmers and scientists in a non-certified profession. STSMs have demonstrated sustained technical achievement and are recognized inside IBM as experts in their field. An STSM contributes intellectual capital such as patents and publications, provides technical leadership on complex projects and often represents his or her business unit in corporate and high-level task forces.”

  I apply for Distinguished Engineer (DE) this October.


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IBM – Senior Technical Staff Member – Transition and Transformation Specialty Service Area (STSM, T&T SSA)

  I never know what the day will bring.   I am back doing critsits and staying up all night.

–  DB2 (on AIX) –  Database Cluster Reporting (being published at the National

Computer Measurement Group (CMG), hopefully!).   Chief Engineer, Enterprise Computing Model   Rewrote SPSS forecasting methodology for mainframe and

distributed data.   Chair Rocky Mountain CMG, subject chair Hot Topics.   Academy Studies

–  HA Architecture –  Standard x and p architecture, OVMS, storage, etc. –  Workload Optimized Systems –  Time-Sliced GPUs

  Day job: –  SAN Migration Methodology (testing, when to use) –  Riverbed/Steelhead utilization –  Datacenter relocation reviews

  Moving to Ireland, October 2012!


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The Best Advice I Have   Don’t accept what other people tell you your goals

should be, especially if they are too easy.   Pick 1 or 2 really hard things and work on them all

year long.   Do NOT give up. Ever.   Goals can be personal:

–  I will be in a good mood every single day this year. –  I will not get mad when I have to do my Travel Expense

Accounting in the incredibly picky way my manager requires which takes 4 hours longer than it should.

  Goals can be technical: –  I will build a model of physical to virtual consolidation in

SecondLife this year. –  I will learn SPSS. –  I will understand everything about workload optimized

systems.   HAVE FUN!!!!


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Is it really social networking?


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Giveback

 Technical Vitality Council

 20+ mentees, 3 women (I have 4 mentors). – Some women don’t want to be promoted and do not want

the hours and the travel. – Some women do not know how to push their career

forward.

–  I use the STSM checklist.


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Get your name out there!

  I’m co-chair of the Rocky Mountain Computer Measurement Group. Present there! –  There are many regional groups, including one in Boston. –  I know many of the regional chairs, contact me if you want an

introduction.   I’m chair of the Hot Topics are at the National CMG.

– Have an idea for a paper? Let me know!   Have an internal newsletter where you need an interview?

–  I know many women, many different areas of computer science.

– Some even not dipped in blue!


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Make friends with me!

  SecondLife = Clea Coronet

  Twitter = @cleacoulter

  Linkedin = Clea Zolotow

  Personal Email: [email protected]

  Check out www.cmg.org (especially MeasureIT, the online journal).

(views posted on social media are my own)

Documents

Career Information and Workload Warriors - Time Saving Tips and … · and Workload Warriors - Time Saving Tips and Tricks“ June 12, 2012 (views posted here are my own) Clea Zolotow